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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Wilson Lamb" <infomet AT embarqmail.com>
  • To: "Marty Hanks" <marty AT justbeenc.com>, <frank AT porterscales.com>, "Orange County Bees" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Worker seem to be ignoring the queencage
  • Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:18:34 -0400

I'm not claiming any real expertise, but feel that with the influx of beekeepers and demand from commercials the quality of packages and queens is going down.  I never liked my packages and I hear more and more reports of problems.
 
I think many suppliers are simply overdoing, to maximize their income.  Obviously I don't include the good ones, whoever they are.  With prices about doubling in the last few years, there's a lot of incentive to ship whatever they can get out.
 
I'm quitting this year, partly because of bad luck with packages and queens.
 
Wilson Lamb
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 4:41 PM
Subject: Re: [ocba] Worker seem to be ignoring the queencage

Hi Frank,
 
its been a weird year so far. This same thing happened to a friend... and neebee.. Sally. She may join in and post not sure. Her 2 packages went in ok, but by the second day the one had left the hive and went into the other. she noticed the bearding and was trying to figure this out. they went in and saw the very same thing.5 or so bees on the queen. they then moved 3-4 frames of bees back over to only find they were all back over by the next day.
 
when i looked in i (on day 3) i figured out that they were not taking to the queen, she looked sick and had a whitish dust-flaking on her back. i do not know what that was, but she was dead the very next day.
 
Since then her now double package, single queen has been VERY productive in making fresh wax (all new frames) and storing some pollen and LOTS of nectar-syrup. BUT when I went in today ( just 2 weeks out) she had only layed some brood on portions of 4-5 frames and the girls already had starting making supercedure cells. most capped and some not. So they don't seem to like here either...she also had spotty brood, when she laid, and i even found a few eggs in the nectar and pollen cells beside the small amount of brood. WEIRD! So we are gonna let them emerge and make a new queen that will hopefully do much better...Sally or I will keep you posted on how that goes next month.
 
So my personal experience from this weekend from my packages was that 10 of the 20 queens i got were smaller than normal. Had to look hard to tell which one was the queen at first. So i do not have an answer for the separate packaging...anyone know why it was different this year?? It seems to me that extra day or two would start the bonding experience. This is not the norm, but my biggest issue was that 6 of my packages had 1/3 dead bees in there before i opened it......could have been the 2 very tiny holes in the bottom of the can! I'm SO glad i sprayed them a few times before opening them up...i think most starved!
 
Marty

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Frank Gillespie <frank AT porterscales.com> wrote:

Hi all,

 

One of the folks up in Wake Forest that I’m friends with on Facebook is having a problem with one of his two new colonies: the bees seem to be ignoring the queen! The first hive is acting normally in that they are clustered around the queen cage but the second group are split into three separate clusters with none of them around the queen. There might be one or two workers on the queen’s cage but that is it. He checked the hive two days after the installation and made sure his queen was still alive and she is. Both he and I are out of ideas…

 

The queens this year didn’t come inside the package but rather were separated from all packages for their trip up from Georgia. I’m wondering if maybe the girls just don’t sense the queen pheromones yet.

 

Any ideas?

 

Regards,

 

Frank Gillespie

Laboratory Service

Porter Scales

Tel: 919-828-1750

Fax: 919-755-0991

Cell: 919-538-6817 

 


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--
Marty Hanks
Just Bee, Apiaries
 
 Home of the Orange County Honey Project.
"Created by Artisans....Bottled by Humans"


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